


XX

by Glisseo



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Happy 20th Anniversary Harry Potter!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-27
Updated: 2017-06-27
Packaged: 2018-11-19 20:17:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11320914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glisseo/pseuds/Glisseo
Summary: He did not dare approach the house completely, but from his position he could clearly the see the front door of Number 4. The brass number four, unchanged. The doorstep …Twenty years ago, at this point in time, he had still been with his parents, not knowing how soon it would all change: they would be no more and he would be placed on that very doorstep, an orphan, the Boy Who Lived.For the 20th anniversary of the publication of Harry Potter.





	XX

Mr and Mrs. Dursley, of Number 4, Privet Drive, would assure anyone who wondered that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. It was clear, they hoped, that they were the last people you’d expect to be involved with anything strange of mysterious, because they simply didn’t hold with such nonsense.   
This was the image that the Dursleys clung to, and no amount of money could have persuaded them to admit otherwise. After all, it was not so long ago that strange and mysterious things had happened at Number 4, and – much to their horror – the Dursleys had been swept up in it …  
  
But that was in the past. Now they lived a resolutely normal life, much the same as it had been before all that abnormal business, and on the dull, grey Saturday this story starts, there was nothing to suggest to the Dursleys that anything was amiss in their perfectly normal world. They got up and had breakfast. Mr Dursley read the paper and complained about the state of the country. Then he went to play golf, and Mrs Dursley cleaned the house. She spent a long time polishing the silver frames holding photographs of a well-built blond man, barely distinguishable from the overweight child in the rest of the frames. She sniffed as she worked, wishing their son would visit more.   
  
Both of them would have been horrified to see a cloaked figure appear as if from nowhere in the middle of the street. 

But they didn’t see, occupied as they were with their very normal day-to-day business. They didn’t see the figure standing in the bleak drizzle, staring fixedly at the doorstep of Number 4; nor did they see the second cloaked figure who appeared some time later and joined the first. They were blissfully unaware that the funny business they so strongly despised had returned to Privet Drive.   
  
*  
  
Nearly two hundred miles away, several hours earlier, Harry Potter had started his day also completely unaware of the particular significance of the date.   
  
Typically, he enjoyed Saturdays. No work unless he was called in. If Ginny, his girlfriend, was playing in a match, he’d go and watch; otherwise, she had training in the morning, so he would potter around their small cottage until then, when they would often go over to the Burrow, her family home, for lunch.   
This particular Saturday, Harry had found himself immersed in paperwork until Ginny’s return, so his usual routine of lazily reading the papers and – if he got round to it – doing housework was cast aside. As it was, he did not see the day’s newspaper until he was seated at the scrubbed pine table in the Burrow’s warm welcoming kitchen, chatting to Mr and Mrs Weasley about the latest goings-on in the Auror Office.   
  
The paper was lying open on the table, and he reached for it as he spoke, idly flipping it over to read the front page.  
  
“… and Robards said he’s been dodging arrest for years, only minor offences but …”  
  
As the headline leapt out at him, he trailed off into stunned silence.   
  
“Harry, dear?” said Mrs Weasley anxiously. She followed his gaze. “Oh! Oh, Arthur, you should have moved it! Oh, dear …”  
  
“He might have already seen it at home,” Mr Weasley pointed out mildly, but Harry wasn’t listening. He was looking at the picture beneath the headline, which showed a smiling baby, forehead unscarred beneath a tuft of jet-black hair.    
  
Where had they got that from?  
  
 ** _TWENTY YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF ‘THE BOY WHO LIVED’  
On this day in 1981, Harry Potter – just over a year old – put paid to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named for what was to be only the first time.   
Sixteen years later, he would defeat him for good, but ‘The Boy Who Lived’ had a lot to go through before that day would come._** _  
  
October 31st, 1981. A day that was to be forever remembered in the history books as the day a mere infant defeat (or so it was thought) the most terrible Dark wizard for 100 years, ending over a decade of terror. But victory came at a price. Staunch opponents of the Dark regime and members of the original Order of the Phoenix (the underground organization led by Albus Dumbledore), Lily and James Potter (pictured top left) lost their lives in He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’s attack. Following the subsequent (wrongful) imprisonment of his godfather, Sirius Black, Potter was placed in the care of his mother’s Muggle sister. Legend has it that the baby was left on the doorstep of Petunia Dursley’s Surrey home; however, this has never been proven. There, he grew up completely unaware of his origins and his fame, not even knowing that he was a wizard until his eleventh birthday, when he was visited by Hogwarts gameskeeper and half-giant Rubeus Hagrid.   
  
At Hogwarts, he was Sorted into Gryffindor, and quickly befriended the two who would go on to stand by his side as he took on numerous dangerous challenges and brushes with death, Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger (pictured bottom right). Lily and James Potter were remembered for being remarkable students, serving as Head Boy and Girl, but their son had no such plans. Members of staff and classmates reveal that Potter was bright but unambitious in his school career. It was clear, they say, that he had talent, but there was not much call in the classroom for the bravery and brilliance he would demonstrate elsewhere.   
  
By the end of his first year at Hogwarts, Harry Potter had made it impossible to doubt that his victory 10 years earlier had been a mere fluke. Successfully fighting off a shadow of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named once more, he returned to Surrey safe in the knowledge that he was no ordinary young wizard.   
  
This would be proven further as he continued his education. In his second year he reportedly slayed a Basilisk that was Petrifying Muggle-born students. Third year saw him master the fiendishly difficult Patronus Charm to wield off Azkaban’s former guards, the Dementors. In his fourth year he would witness tragedy again, as his entry into the Triwizard Tournament ended in the horrific death of fellow student Cedric Diggory and the return of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Potter faced his Dark nemesis and lived, unlike so many, to tell the tale. The following year, as He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named rose once again to power, he would begin training Hogwarts pupils to fight alongside him. The loss of his estranged godfather can only have strengthened his resolve to finish the work his parents started.   
  
And he was to succeed. Onlookers speak in hushed tones of the moment a 17 year old Potter, bloodied and weary from a long and terrible battle, defeated He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named for good, having attempted to sacrifice himself but proving that his title of ‘The Boy Who Lived’ still held true. Following the victory, Potter went on to join and reform the Auror Department alongside fellow war heroes Weasley and Neville Longbottom, who have both since left to pursue alternative careers.  
  
These days, Potter enjoys relative seclusion from the public eye, preferring that the spotlight be cast on long-term girlfriend Ginevra Weasley (pictured bottom left) of the Holyhead Harpies. It is not known how he will be marking this day, the 20th anniversary of both his parents’ death and the birth of his fame and – some might say – destiny.   
  
_Harry’s friends and family waved up at him from the pictures accompanying the article as he came to the end. He caught a waft of flowery scent, and realised Ginny was behind him. She squeezed his shoulder gently.   
  
“I had no idea they’d do something like this,” he muttered. He was still transfixed by the picture of his infant self. “I mean …  _why?_ ”  
  
“Slow news week, I’d imagine,” said Mr Weasley ruefully. “And you’ll always be news, I’m afraid.”  
  
Abruptly, Harry stood up.   
  
“I’ve got to go,” he said, not meeting Ginny’s eye but looking around for his cloak. “Sorry – I – I’ll see you all later –”  
  
*  
  
The street looked more ordinary than ever in the light, persistent rain that had begun to fall, the large square houses dulled by the mist.   
  
He did not dare approach the house completely, but from his position he could clearly the see the front door of Number 4. The brass number four, unchanged. The doorstep …  
  
 _Legend has it that the baby was left on the doorstep of Petunia Dursley’s Surrey home …_  
  
Twenty years ago, at this point in time, he had still been with his parents, not knowing how soon it would all change: they would be no more and he would be placed on that very doorstep, an orphan, the Boy Who Lived.   
  
Twenty years. Twenty years, parentless … He had not even remembered. The twinge of guilt he had felt upon seeing the paper twisted sharply in his chest. Ought he to have done something? There was no one else now to remember them, not really. Only he, Harry, and …  
  
Through the window, he saw his aunt moving, but she did not look out. He wondered if she had recognised the date. If she remembered …  _He_  didn’t remember. He tried to imagine himself, the baby on the doorstep. How odd to think that had been him, that he had experienced that.   
  
Somewhere behind him, there was a soft  _pop._ Harry didn’t turn, even as footsteps drew closer to him. He didn’t need the flowery scent on the air, mingling with the rain, to tell him that it was Ginny; Ginny, who of course would have known where to find him, perhaps straight away, but had left him for the time she knew he needed.   
  
She stood behind him, and he reached out silently to take her hand. It was very warm beneath his cold fingers, but she didn’t flinch.   
  
He’d not known family in the years spent here, not really. But he knew it now. He and Ginny were in it for the long haul, and someday they’d have children, he hoped, and not one of them would ever know what it was to be left on a doorstep.   
  
“Shall we go home?” Ginny murmured eventually. Harry nodded. With one last look at Number 4, they turned to leave, watched, unnoticed, by a tabby cat sitting stiffly on the wall. 


End file.
